


something you give yourself

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bending (Avatar), Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, also a character dies BUT is revived?, so like it's a fakeout they're fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24430885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: The heat is completely gone in five breaths. Justin doesn’t say anything as he returns his water to his bag, so Adam doesn’t either. He examines his arms and finds only the barest indication he was ever hurt.“Thank you,” he says.Justin presses their shoulders together on an inhale and moves away on an exhale. He says, “You should be more careful, Adam.”“I’m trying,” Adam says. He summons a small spark of electricity and they watch it dance over his hands, his newly healed wrists. “I’m learning.”“Then I guess,” Justin says, voice quiet and serious, “I’ll be careful for the both of us, then.”___________________*chanting* AVATAR AU AVATAR AU AVATAR AUBending! Ambushing! Pining! this fic has it allll baybeee. this is Holsom from Adam's POV :)
Relationships: Adam "Holster" Birkholtz & Jack Zimmermann, Adam "Holster" Birkholtz & Larissa "Lardo" Duan & Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, Adam "Holster" Birkholtz & Shitty Knight, Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi
Comments: 22
Kudos: 75





	something you give yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halfabreath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfabreath/gifts), [teluete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teluete/gifts).



> This was inspired by a conversation I had w halfabreath after seeing [this AMAZING FANART](https://teluete.tumblr.com/post/619377133702234112/teluete-you-know-the-difference-between-you-and) by teluete :)
> 
> As mentioned in the tags, there is a character death & resurrection in the latter 4th of the story. If you wanna skip it, it starts around the line "The door opens to them." and ends with the phrase "with a mountain of pillows"

________________________

It’s a drizzly night on the mountaintop. 

It’s always drizzly, actually. Ordinarily Adam would be annoyed about it — it seeps into his bones when it’s like this, cools the fire from the inside out — but today the burns on his arms welcome the rain. The rain pulls the heat out of his skin. He suspects he could do that himself, but none of them trust fire enough to do anything but harm. 

“So this is where you went.” 

Adam doesn’t say anything as Justin sits next to him. He knows Justin’s looking at his burns without turning his head. He’s not sure if it’s specific to Justin or waterbenders as a whole, but Justin almost always telegraphs his movements in advance. Justin has always been steady like that.

“Where else would I have gone?” Adam asks. It’s not so much a question as it is a reminder that he wouldn’t leave, especially not now. Not when they’re so  _ close. _

Justin shrugs. “You picked a nice night for it. I think Jack’s glad it’s raining.”

“It’ll calm us both down.”

It shouldn’t have been a big fight. They talk strategy all the time; it’s impossible not to, when you’re traveling with the Fire Prince and another firebender and the heir to the Southern Water Tribe. They’re too conspicuous, even after Jack cut his hair and Adam grew his long and Justin hid his bags of water under his clothes. 

It makes sense to cover Jack’s scar. Adam rubs his wrists.

“Maybe you two shouldn’t spar until we figure this out,” Justin says, and Adam glances at him. Justin studies his hands. “Find the Avatar, and all that. Stop the war.”

“He didn’t burn me because he’s mad,” Adam says. “He burned me because I missed the step. I should’ve countered his blow. I’ve done it a million times.”

“I’m just saying.” 

Justin stares out at the view unfurling in front of them. Adam thinks he’s looking beyond it into some future lurking out of their reach, turning over some uncertainties in his mind. There’s a city at the very base of the mountain and its lights reflect like stars in Justin’s eyes. 

Adam says, “I know,” and Justin sighs. “I shouldn’t have said that, right? About his scar.”

“I offered once,” Justin says. “He almost let me, but that was before that first Earth Kingdom patrol found us.”

That was at the very beginning then. Adam remembers that, how he’d sat around annoyed because of his empty stomach and then had sprinted to help Jack carry Justin into camp. How he’d thought his heart would make a permanent home in his stomach. It had been the longest two days of his life. But Justin had opened his eyes at the end of it. Justin’s next to him two years later, breathing. They have all come through worse scrapes than that by now. 

“He wouldn’t have let you anyway,” Adam says, and the image of Justin unconscious splinters into Justin, hands encased in glowing water. Justin, looking at him, waiting. Adam closes his eyes. “Please.”

The relief from the water is immediate. Adam sighs as it soothes every angry red inch of skin, pulling his blood vessels and flesh together. Even all these years later he isn’t used to the feeling of bending used like this. For healing. For a moment it feels like Justin’s holding his hand, but when Adam opens his eyes all he’s holding is water. 

The heat is completely gone in five breaths. Justin doesn’t say anything as he returns his water to his bag, so Adam doesn’t either. He examines his arms and finds only the barest indication he was ever hurt.

“Thank you,” he says.

Justin presses their shoulders together on an inhale and moves away on an exhale. He says, “You should be more careful, Adam.”

“I’m trying,” Adam says. He summons a small spark of electricity and they watch it dance over his hands, his newly healed wrists. “I’m learning.”

“Then I guess,” Justin says, voice quiet and serious, “I’ll be careful for the both of us, then.”

There is something soft hidden under his words that Adam doesn’t know how to respond to, so he doesn’t. He just sits there and breathes with Justin until Justin stands, stretching. Adam nearly asks him to stay, to be there on the ledge with him. He nearly asks him the odds of flying off this mountaintop all the way to the location marked on the map under Jack’s pillow and whether or not they could do it in a night. He nearly asks how likely it is that they’ll find the Avatar out there, how reliable their sources are, whether or not the Avatar will believe that they’ve come in peace to end the war. He doesn’t say any of these things.

“Go to sleep soon, okay?” Justin whispers, yawning. 

He seems to be waiting for a response. “I’ll be in soon,” Adam says quietly. “I promise.”

Adam’s rewarded with another yawn and a sleepy smile. Both of those things settle too close to his chest. He hears Justin move through the underbrush and hears the rustle of the tent flap and hears Jack say something in a low, tired voice that sounds like  _ is he okay? _ and hears Justin say something like  _ he will be _ back. 

He sits upright. Crosses his legs and rests his hands palm-side up on his thighs.

Then he searches the dark, trying to find what future Justin was seeing so they could seize it for themselves.

____________

This is a very old story. Adam has heard some variation of this all his life, though usually without the detail of the Fire Lord burning his own nephew’s face for speaking on behalf of their people.

In the bedtime stories Adam was told, the dictator is always deposed by organized rebel groups who join forces to take down the Big Evil. There are always setbacks: imprisonment, loss of supplies, poor weather. Eclipses when you need your fire to burn brightest. Comets that only exaggerate the strengths of your enemies. Buried in them, though, the stories held ways to organize, to spread the story to the people, to win them to your side. How to make disguises out of leaves and old blankets. How to barter effectively in all three nations. 

_ This is how you survive and dismantle a war, _ the stories said. _ This is how you bring it down to save nations. The world is best in sunlight. _ They never said how to build the nations back up.

Looking back with ten years of hindsight, Adam should’ve realized his family for who they were before the Fire Nation burnt his house down. Loyal citizens don’t need to hide their messages in allegories. Whenever he brings this up Justin always reminds him how young he was, how there is no family alive who would tell their eleven-year-old they’re planning a rebellion. He’s right. It doesn’t make things hurt less, burn less, when he was taken to the Capital to be raised without his family.

He didn’t grow up with Jack, but he knows him better than anyone. They didn’t grow up as friends, really, but they are all the other has of home. At breakfast, Adam knows him well enough to see when Jack’s trying to apologize but can’t start for fear of something else coming out instead.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says as the light filters through the trees. He feels Justin still next to him, but Adam’s looking across the fire. He wonders if Jack knows he touches the edges of his scar when he thinks. The scar looks irritated today somehow, as if Jack was rubbing it in his sleep. It always seems bigger and smaller than Adam remembers. He wonders if it feels the same to Jack. Somehow he can’t imagine it seems anything but massive.

Jack looks tired. He says, “I am too,” and his words bleed tired. “You’re right. It would be a tactful advantage if my scar wasn’t there. I’m too — noticeable like this.”

“There are a lot of people out there with scars like yours,” Adam says. “We can blend fine if we just get to—”

“I’m not sure we’ll be able to blend once we have the Avatar,” Justin says. “They’ve been missing for a century, who knows what condition they’re in?”

Adam says, “We will. The Fire Nation has hurt plenty of people in a hundred years. We’ll be fine.”

They pack their bedrolls in relative silence. After three years of exile-turned-being fugitives from every police force in the world, there’s not much to say to each other. Sometimes Adam feels as though a spirit keeps stealing their words right after they use them and if they talk they’ll use their stock even faster until all that’s left is nothing. The problem is, it doesn’t feel like an impossibility anymore. They had had a catastrophic encounter with a centipede spirit named Koh who had nearly stolen Adam’s face a few months back.

“Ready?” Jack asks. He sweeps his gaze over the campsite as if committing it to memory.

“As we’ll ever be,” Justin says, adjusting his pack. Adam nods.

____________

Now and then as they walk Justin will take his water out and practice tossing it from hand to hand and throwing up high, arcing in a shimmering column before crashing down over one of their heads like it’s going to splatter. Sometimes he sends it darting around all three of them like an enchanted ribbon and lets it creep in closer and closer until Adam or Jack lights a small fire in their hands to make the water sizzle away. Justin used to complain about this, but then he realized he could pull the moisture from the air. The first time he’d done so the water had beaded on his fingers like gloves made of crystals. It’s an absolutely gorgeous display of bending.

Right now, the water ribbon flits in front of Adam’s face, seemingly taunting him with how free and lighthearted it is. Adam’s about to toss a small flame at it when a sharp crack fills the air.

Justin instantly summons his water back to his side. The air around Adam’s hands heats as he and Justin search the bushes around them, knowing Jack’s scanning the trees. His pulse jumps in his throat.

“Hello?” Jack says. The word sounds almost pleasant, like they’re just going for a stroll. He’s sawed his vowels into the heavy accent of the Earth Kingdom. “Is someone there?”

The trees seem to lean down toward them. Adam nearly lights them up before he realizes Justin’s hands are moving almost imperceptibly, drawing water in a long, thin stream from the leaves above their heads.

A bush rustles to their right and Adam crashes through it without a thought. He runs into something very, very solid and tumbles to the ground.

“Ow!”

Something very fine settles on his face. When he touches it, his fingertips come back dirty. Slowly, carefully, Adam sits upright, ignoring Justin cussing him out and Jack telling him to get back on the path. It takes him too long to realize the earth hasn’t risen in front of him. Or that it has, but not because he’s still disoriented from the fall. 

It’s a wall of earth, which means— 

“An earthbender,” Justin says. Adam hears rather than sees him push through the bush to stand next to him. “Are you in there? We’re not going to hurt you, I promise. We’re just getting supplies.”

“Guys?” Jack calls from the path, voice strained. This more than anything is why Adam turns around; Jack never sounds strained unless something bad is happening.

Or, Adam realizes, taking in the spears and floating blocks of earth, unless something bad is about to happen.

____________

It’s only two people. It’s only two people and they should be able to take them — they’re the Fire Prince and a master waterbender and Adam, it should be easy, it shouldn’t be a question — except for how easily the girl blocked out the sun with a ceiling of earth and except for how the guy confiscated already all of Justin’s water and Jack’s swords. 

The — thieves? Interlopers? Bounty hunters? Adam has no idea what they want — have them tied up with ropes Adam can tell by touch are inflammable. He tries to shock them apart anyway, and it rebounds up his arm. It doesn’t make him feel any better about the situation. In the best case, this duo uses inflammable ropes for everything just in case they come across fire benders. 

In the worst case? Adam really does not want to think about the worst case.

Jack clears his throat, scar a dark slash across his face in the shadow, and Adam thinks about the worst case scenario anyway.

“Who are you?” Jack asks.

It seems a fair enough question. Adam might have said something closer to  _ what the fuck do you want, _ which is why Jack’s their designated spokesman most of the time. He wiggles his wrists as quietly and subtly as he can. Justin covers his hands and starts fumbling at the knots, making Adam sit still to cover them. 

The girl would probably only come up to the middle of Adam’s chest if he were standing. The guy behind her is probably as tall as Adam’s chin with a mustache that is at least two weeks from its last trim. The guy seems to defer to the girl as if it’s her show and he’s just along for the ride. If they just got these ropes off— 

She’s the bender. Adam doesn’t know what specifically clues him in but on an impulse he checks her stance and knows. He thinks she’s sunk at least an inch into the ground, like she’s anchoring herself closer to the dirt. Somehow she’s standing on the earth like she loves it.

“I think it’d be a better use of our time to ask why you’re trespassing in our woods,” she says. 

“We were just passing through to town,” Jack says, using the story they’d prepped before they had left their campsite. “We’re out of food. We didn’t realize this was your woods, I’m sorry for—”

He breaks off. The girl shakes her head, smiling a smile that means anything but amusement. “I don’t buy that,” she says. “We’re not idiots, firebender.” 

Justin stops working on Adam’s ropes. Jack opens his mouth, stunned, but no words come out.

Adam speaks without thinking. “How do you know that?”

She glares at him. “Air moves differently around different benders. Why am I not surprised that you  _ don’t _ know that?”

“Probably too busy burning the whole world to the ground to figure it out,” the guy says. The girl scoffs.

“We’re not like that,” Justin says, “we’re—”

The girl tilts her head. “A waterbender,” she says, and now she sounds curious. “What under earth could ever convinced you to join up with them, huh?”

“They saved my life.”

He says it like it didn’t turn the world on its axis when it happened. The girl purses her lips, glancing at the guy, and Adam doesn’t blame them for being surprised. He was there, and it’s still a shock to hear.

The girl nods briskly. “Okay,” she says, and with a stomp of her foot the earth ceiling collapses back into the ground. 

“Just like that?” Jack asks.

Adam wants to tell him to shut up. The sun is warm and  _ right _ on his arms; does it matter why she changed her mind so quickly if it means the sun is back? Privately Adam promises if they ever get out of this, truly and fully out of this, he’s going to sit in the sun until his whole body feels bright.

Of course it fucking matters why she’s backing down now. Adam wants to pick up their things and knock these two out and carry on their merry fucking way, but Jack and Justin both look like someone carved them out of a very serious stone. He’d be content trying to figure it out five miles away with food in their stomachs, but no one’s moving. 

Of course it matters. Adam hates everything. 

“Just like that,” the girl says. She looks at them sharply. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Justin says, “We won’t,” and the guy claps his hands together.

“Perfect,” the guy says, and pulls the map from Jack’s bag. 

Adam almost feels like someone’s tugging on his internal organs. “Put that back,” he mutters, lightheaded. The guy doesn’t seem to hear him.

“So. Where we going?”

Jack stares at the guy, fingers on his scar. “What?”

The guy shrugs. “Thought we were going on a road trip. Didn’t you think so, Lardo?”

Adam’s looking around for the third person when the girl says, “I did think so.”

“You can’t come with us,” Justin says, and the ropes around Adam’s wrists go slack.

Fire bursts around his fists in seconds. He jumps to his feet and stares the girl down, trying to project thoughts of exactly what could happen if she doesn’t let them go. The fact that he’d never burn another person is not something she needs to know.

She just raises her eyebrows, stomps her foot again, and lifts a massive block of earth. It slowly swings through the air to hower over Jack and Justin’s heads. Jack’s good eye widens.

“Do that and I drop this.” She lowers it just so slightly before jerking it back up. A clump of dirt falls and splatters across Justin’s forehead and Adam’s heart squeezes. “Your choice.”

“Don’t, just — here,” Adam says, and he lets his fire dissipate into the wind. “It’s out, okay? Leave them alone.” She doesn’t move.  _ “Please.” _

The square of earth sloughs back to the ground behind them. Adam can’t breathe properly.

“This won’t work if we don’t agree to put our powers aside for now, firebender,” she says. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Adam says hoarsely.

She nods slowly. “Okay then. We’ll ask again: where are we going?”

When Jack speaks, his voice sounds like it’s coming from deep in the earth.

“We’re going to finish the war.”

____________

Lardo and the guy, whose name is Shitty, of all things, trade nuggets of information as they hike. Adam can’t help but feel like they’re still under armed escort no matter how many random facts they learn about them. Jack asks a few questions like  _ why did you say that was your woods? Why are you really coming with us? What do you know about the Earth Kingdom’s plans to end the war? _ but neither Lardo nor Shitty give any meaningful answers, so eventually he just stops talking.

“Who taught you to bend?” Adam asks eventually. Lardo’s eyes brighten as she talks about her instructor, a short blind woman improbably named “Tough.”

“It was a beautiful building too,” Lardo says. “The white lotuses were amazing in the summer.”

Jack jerks like he’s been hit. “What did you say?”

“I said the white lotuses were amazing in the summer,” Lardo says breezily. 

Adam thinks she placed a delicate stress on the words  _ white lotuses. _ He and Justin exchange confused looks.  _ No idea, _ Adam mouths. Justin makes a face and shrugs.

Jack says, “I always thought white lotuses bloomed underground.”

_ We’ll ask him later, _ Justin mouths now. Adam throws his hands up. Jack and Lardo continue talking about impractical gardening advice as they continue through the woods, and the sun is past the halfway point before they stop to rest. Shitty loops Justin into a conversation about how “Those guys are firebenders but they’re not huge fucking assholes? Explain that.” Adam pulls Jack into a bush before they can be sucked in too.

“What’s with the white lotuses?”

Jack shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge a memory. “I can’t remember everything,” he says. “I think — my father used to talk about them before my uncle took over the throne. If I remember right—”

“You shouldn’t be talking about them out in the open?” Lardo calls. “Where anyone could hear you? Wow you’re so right. So smart of you.”

“They need to know,” Jack replies. “It’s important.”

“Which is why it should wait until we’re sure it’s safe,” she says. 

She tilts her head like she’s daring him to press her on this. Adam kind of really wants him to.

“This isn’t your mission,” Adam says. “Why do you care what we do with it?”

She narrows her eyes. “Excuse me?”

He quickly runs the words over in his head and winces. “That’s not what I meant,” he says. “I meant, why do you care when we talk about things?”

“I will tell you,” she says through her teeth, “when it is safe to do so.”

“But—”

“Adam,” Justin says softly.

It’s all he says because it’s all he needs to. Someday Adam will ask him how he knows it’s that easy to snap him back from an argument, how he knows how to say his name like it’s a reminder of who he is. Like he’s renaming him and pushing life back into the word. For now Adam just lets it be, lets it work, and imagines their progress the way it would look on a map. 

____________

Two days later they stop by a river to make camp. It almost hurts how excited Justin is to see running water; he’d been using the same water since before they left the Southern Water Tribe three months ago. It doesn’t go stale in the same way Adam’s fire wouldn’t lose its nature if he could somehow keep it going for months on end, but it works best with flowing water in the same way fire works best during the day. There is something about an active source that can’t be replicated.

Adam isn’t surprised when Justin strips to his shorts and walks into the river. He  _ is _ surprised how much he likes the sight of him like this, orchestrating an elaborate elemental dance that surrounds his body. Watching him bend is almost like that giant square of earth fell onto his chest and knocked the air out of his lungs. Beautiful.

He thinks he says it out loud. His cheeks flush.

“Wait for me!”

He’s more surprised when Lardo strips to her undergarments and strides into the river too.

“Shitty?” he asks. Shitty hums. “What’s she doing?”

“Oh,” Shitty says, and Adam looks at him intently. That single syllable is filled with so much  _ longing. _ “She’s bending.”

Adam frowns. “She’s in the water.”

“There’s earth under the water, though,” Shitty says. Two seconds after he says it Lardo lifts a sloppy pile of mud from the riverbank, laughing like it’s the funniest joke she’s ever heard. A slight strain of envy creeps into his voice when he speaks next. “It’s a challenge she sets herself, copying other bending styles, but we’ve never met a waterbender in person before. Just scrolls. If you look, you’ll see she’s imitating Justin.”

As soon as he says it Adam notices how fluid her movements are and how Justin’s bending changes slowly to match hers. It’s like they’re dancing almost, passing moves back and forth until they’re moving in unison. Justin laughs as they settle into a flow. Something like jealousy stabs Adam’s ribs.

“You’re not a bender.” He says it like it could be a question, but it’s not. 

Shitty says, “No. I’m not.” 

He says it like it could be refuted, but it can’t. Adam turns so he can face Shitty and still see the bending and Shitty’s face is so open he hurts to look at. 

“You want to be,” Adam says. 

It doesn’t need an answer, so he’s not surprised when Shitty doesn’t respond. His face does a complicated thing above his mustache. 

“We want lots of things we can’t have,” Shitty says. His eyes are bright when he adds, “Maybe we have that in common.”

Adam’s about to ask him to explain when Justin laughs again, the sound reverberating in the clearing around them. Adam pretends his laugh sinks into his lungs and soothes that jealous spot in his ribs. He doesn’t have to ask what he means.

Jack wades into the water carefully, like he’s worried it’s going to sap his fire from his body, and Shitty says, “Justin said you saved his life.”

“He did.”

“So there must be a story there,” Shitty says. Curiosity rounds the edges of his words. 

Adam sighs. “There is.”

He doesn’t wait for Shitty to ask. Quietly, like the story would stain the world in front of them if it got loose, he tells a story about two lost boys shipped off to war, how one had a broken face but both had broken homes.  _ We weren’t boys, not exactly, _ he says,  _ we were eighteen, _ and Shitty says  _ That’s barely older than a child, _ and Adam doesn’t protest. He still can’t point to when exactly he lost his childhood. 

Justin, Lardo, and Jack splash each other in the river and the dying sun. Adam watches the way the water sprays golden while he tells Shitty how those boys were in an iron ship and how it was getting colder every minute and they didn’t have proper clothes, how they’d whisper plans to escape in the underbelly of the beast, how when they reached the shoreline their commanders told them to find the last waterbender and bring him in alive.

“Alive?” Shitty asks gently.

“They wanted me and Jack to kill him while they watched,” Adam says flatly. “To prove our commitment to the cause. Somehow we didn’t realize that until Justin was on his knees in front of us.”

Shitty says, “Oh,” and this time it sounds like a mourning song for the children they could’ve been. “But you weren’t committed.”

“Of course not. How — look what they did to Jack! They ripped me from my family, probably killed them, that village was in ruins — look what they did to all of us, look what they did to the world!” 

Adam trails off. In the river, Justin and Lardo team up to dunk Jack and Jack comes up sputtering. It’d be easy to look at them and think they were normal if you didn’t see the way they trade off checking their surroundings. Right now the war stretches so far in front of them that it’s hard to see past. 

He rubs his eyes. “No. We were never committed. I fought our commanders to give Jack time to cut Justin free and Justin helped us instead of running to safety. It made all the difference. We may have saved him first, but he saved us best.”

Shitty’s so quiet Adam thinks he fell asleep standing up. When he looks at him, Shitty’s looking out at the river. 

“Earthbending is dangerous where we are right now,” Shitty says. “There are Fire Nation soldiers everywhere in the towns outside the capital. We weren’t protected enough to move. The soldiers know Lards is a bender, they got the roster of her school. She was top of the class before they got here.”

Shitty tilts his head the same way Lardo did and adds, “That’s why we’re in the woods and why those ropes are fireproof, if you were wondering. Just a precaution.”

“I didn’t realize they’d gotten this far to the city,” Adam says. 

“It’s recent.” Shitty shrugs. “Happened in the last two weeks or so. I’m not surprised it’s not on your maps.”

Adam says, “I’m sorry,” and Shitty doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.

“You don’t have to be,” he says. “You realized how fucked up the Fire Nation is and you got out. You saved the last waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe. You’re not the reason Jack’s uncle invaded all of the nations.”

“Still,” Adam says. Then his words register. “What?”

Shitty rolls his eyes. “Adam. You’ve been making rounds on the network for years.”

_ “What?” _

“Lards,” Shitty calls, but softly. She looks over from where she’s sitting on Jack’s shoulders. “We need to tell them.”

“We’re out in the open, I don’t—”

“Tell us what?”

“What’s happening?”

Shitty ignores them. “Can you make that tent again? The earth one.”

Jack starts to make his way out of the water, moving cautiously so Lardo doesn’t fall. Justin follows with a blob of water trailing behind him and Adam just —  _ wants. _ He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. 

Lardo stands on Jack’s shoulders and jumps off, plummeting to the ground, and Adam has just enough time to cry out when she disappears in the earth and reappears at Shitty’s side. She goes on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

“What were you talking about?” Adam asks Justin and Jack, trying not to think.

Justin says, “We were trading techniques,” and Jack says something about the benefits of cross training and protein for a bender, and Justin says something about  _ maybe you guys should spar, just to stay ready; I bet the four of us could practice by sharing moves _ and Adam’s going to crack and ask about things he shouldn’t have when there’s a cracking noise behind them. 

A squat clay structure emerges from the ground. “You giants will have to duck,” Lardo says, and walks without ducking through the low entrance. 

“That’s just cruel,” Shitty mumbles. He disappears into the tent.

Adam, Jack, and Justin just look at each other before Jack follows them. 

“Justin,” Adam says, a little wildly.

Justin smiles slightly. “Yeah?”

“I — nothing,” Adam says. He has no idea what he was about to say. “I … I think I just wanted to say your name.”

Justin’s smile grows wider. He’s starting to speak when Jack calls them to come inside. 

“Can we talk about that at some point?” Justin asks. “You wanting to say my name I mean.”

“Yeah,” Adam says, stunned. 

“Okay,” Justin says, “good,” and he ducks under the entrance. Adam gives himself two deep breaths before going in after him.

The inside of the tent is somehow cozy. It’s due in a large part to the small fire Jack must’ve started but even aside from that, the clay is a beautiful shade of red orange that collects the firelight like it’s greedy for it. Adam follows the heat trail of a tendril of fire from the root of the fire to the ceiling of the tent before sitting down, satisfied with the ventilation in the corner of the roof.

“Okay,” Lardo says once they’ve all settled. She looks at Shitty. “Do you want to start?”

“Start with what,” Justin says, but it’s Jack who answers.

“The Order of the White Lotus.” He looks at all of them. “Right? It’s a secret society that spans all the nations.”

Lardo narrows her eyes, but Adam thinks it’s more out of mild annoyance at being beaten to the punch than true antagonism. “You said you couldn’t remember what it was.”

“It’s just a guess,” Jack says defensively.

“I’ll start,” Shitty says. He takes a sip of water. “It began in a teashop.”

He tells them how the owner of the shop was Fire Nation royalty who had been exiled for calling to stop the war for the good of every citizen of every nation. He had fled to the Earth Kingdom with his nephew and hundreds of refugees, eventually settling in Ba Sing Se with three others they met along the way. All five of them were master benders or craftsmen from the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, and the Northern Water Tribe.

“It was more a progression of fact from then on,” Shitty continues, “that they’d grow networks throughout the nations.”

Justin says, “Networks. Like spy lines?”

Lardo lifts a small ball of earth and packs it in her hands. “It started out like this,” she says, showing them the ball. “Densely concentrated. All their members in one place. Eventually—” Here she flattens the ball. “—the Order spread out to the corners of the Earth Kingdom. And then—” Now she lets the ball crumble apart. She holds the flecks of dirt in a large, loose circle above their heads. “—the Order established roots in the Water Tribes and the outskirts of the Fire Nation. Members now tend to live alone out of a desire to protect their loved ones. The central hub is still the Jasmine Dragon in Ba Sing Se, but now information is spread through messenger hawks and relay systems of riders.

“Their self appointed mission,” Lardo says, and closes her hand. The dirt drops to the ground. Adam blinks instinctively before realizing she’d missed all of them. She looks at each of them in turn. “Is to find the Avatar and put an end to the war.”

They’re quiet a moment. Adam looks into the fire and he can almost see it in the flames, all the subtle machinations during their journey. Like hands guiding flames on their way upward.

“Five months ago I nearly lost my face to a spirit,” Adam says slowly. “The only reason I didn’t was because an old woman warned us not to show emotions right before Koh attacked. We didn’t ask why she was there, she just —  _ was, _ suddenly, she was there.”

Jack sparks a small flame. He says, “In the Southern Water Tribe there was a master who gave us shelter while soldiers were looking for us and fought them off so we had time to escape.”

“A swordsman in the Fire Nation taught Jack how to forge his own sword after we tried to sneak into the capital and failed,” Justin says. 

The fire paints Justin’s face in warm, honey-sweet tones. Adam twists his hand, sending sparks upwards, and now Justin’s bathed in light. Adam blinks. He doesn’t look away.

They throw out more stories of impossible, lucky coincidences that had happened too quickly to analyze. A bounty hunter who’d been stopped last minute by an earthbender who disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived. The night they had caved, staying in a hostel in a small village, and a neatly packaged basket of food had appeared on their window sill. They’d assumed that was just how the hostel did business. The mild amusement on Lardo’s face tells Adam differently.

“You said we were on the network for years,” Adam says, and Shitty nods. “You knew who we were the whole time, then.”

Lardo appraises them. “We knew you were passing our way, but we weren’t really sure it was actually you until you said you were only passing through town. I knew there was some other important destination after the city, there’s usually a very fine vibration emitted when people lie, and yours was louder than Shitty’s snores.”

Shitty makes a strangled noise. Lardo crinkles her nose at him like she’s trying not to laugh.

“Why didn’t anyone talk to us before now?” Justin asks. “If you’ve all known what we were doing for three years, why didn’t anyone fill us in on what was happening? We could’ve finished this by now.”

Shitty frowns. “It’s not a military organization, it’s to preserve and protect peace. They’ll help you stay safe, give you supplies, supplement your training. The day you stop the war, they’ll be there by your side. But it’s not strategic to attack right now anyway. You need the Avatar.”

“So we get the Avatar,” Jack says, ticking it off his finger. “We get the White Lotus. Then we take down the Fire Lord.” He looks at his fingers like they’re a fully realized war strategy. 

“More or less,” Lardo says. “You know it won’t be that easy.”

Jack touches the edge of his scar. “It’s worth the risk,” he says. His gaze is almost a tangible thing when it meets Adam’s. “Right?”

He says it like he’s stating a fact, or trying to sound like it. There’s a tremor of uncertainty that Adam thinks is meant just for him. They know each other best, after all. 

Adam knows what it means to say, “It’s worth everything.” He says it anyway.

____________

Adam and Justin gather plants for stew while Lardo, Jack, and Shitty fish in the river. In the peachy morning light, Justin looks like something straight out of Adam’s dreams. He’s looking at him cut roots when he slices his own palm.

Adam says, “Shit,” and Justin cuts his eyes at him.

Justin takes his bleeding hand so his palm is up, the blood pooling steadily. With his other hand, he summons his water from his bag. Again the water pulls the pain away. Again Adam thinks Justin is holding is hand, but when he looks this time, Justin’s fingers press against his wrist. 

“Thought we decided you were going to be more careful,” Justin says.

Everything Adam has ever known fades away until it’s just this: Justin, looking at him; Justin, fingers on his wrist; Justin, kissed by the morning; Adam, wanting too much.

Adam says, “Thought you were going to be careful for the both of us,” and Justin laughs breathlessly. 

“I could make you take care of yourself,” Justin says. 

Adam rolls his eyes. “You haven’t bloodbent anything bigger than a beetle in your life,” he says. “And I know you. You wouldn’t.”

Justin says, “ I’ll just keep sharp things out of your reach then,” and Adam says, “What will I hold instead?”

Adam’s pulse is reckless in his throat. It is not impossible to imagine Justin felt it in his wrist. 

Justin’s lips part, beginning the outline of Adam’s name.

“You done over there yet?” Jack calls. He holds up five fish for them to see before jerking his head toward the campfire.

The moment feels like it just floated away downstream. Adam tries to breathe around how Justin had just been looking at him like he was seeing him. He stands up, roots in hand.

“Hey,” Justin says softly. 

Adam stops like Justin froze his feet to the ground. He turns Adam’s hand over and laces their fingers together, long enough for them to breathe in and out, before heading back to the others.

____________

Cooking with four benders — and Shitty — is not as graceful as Adam had pictured. He’d imagined something structured, everyone falling into place without needing rehearsal. Going on intuition.

This is not that. 

Shitty debones the fish because no one else wants to and Adam cuts up the roots because Jack and Justin are building a fire and getting water, respectively, and Lardo focuses on crafting an earthenware pot that Justin dehydrates and Adam bakes thoroughly until it’s ready for use. While they’re doing this, Shitty drops one and a half fish on the ground, Jack accidentally starts and extinguishes a tiny forest fire, and Justin drops his first blob of water right onto Jack’s fire. Lardo trips over a log and breaks the pot. Adam misses the lip of the pot for about half of the roots.

“Whoever said benders have a natural sense of balance and depth perception clearly never met any of you,” Shitty comments. Justin throws water at him, but he just blinks and grins.

They find a groove once everything’s in the pot. Justin stirs the soup from his seat, a lazy hand twirling in the air. Adam carefully heats the bottom of the pot while Jack stokes the fire. All three of them help Lardo pull usable bowls from the ground. Shitty spoons out portions.

Now and then the stew in Adam’s bowl spins clockwise and anticlockwise without visible influence. Now and then, Adam sends tiny taps of heat to Justin’s bowl to keep it warm. Now and then, when Adam glances across the fire, Justin is already looking at him.

____________

They’re five minutes outside the city when Lardo stops and says, “Did any of you pack disguises?” 

“I have a hat,” Justin offers. 

“Not for you,” she says. She jerks a thumb at Jack. “For him. Not everyone knows the Fire Prince has a scar like that, but—”

“Anyone looking to kill us will.” Jack’s voice is quiet when he speaks. “I have a cape with a hood. That’s usually what I wear when we have to go into town.”

The city gates loom high and wide ahead of them. Lardo nods, but she seems miles away. Jack shakes his cape out from his bedroll and pulls it on and the hood seems to plunge half his face into darkness. Adam, Shitty, and Justin frown. 

A flicker of movement ahead of them catches Adam’s eye.

“That’s even more noticeable,” Justin’s saying, but Adam only half hears him.

A giant kite floats over the city walls. At the gate, a guard with the skull-like face shield of a Fire Nation soldier stops a man with his cart. The thing moves again. Adam blinks, squinting, but it’s too difficult to see what exactly it was until— 

The man turns, talking to the soldier, and even from here Adam can tell he’s a brightly colored mask. Adam scans down the path and smiles.

“Look,” he says, pointing toward the cart and the small line in front of it. “Must be a festival day.” 

Shitty barters with the merchant while they wait off to the side. Adam doesn’t like this at all, which feels hypocritical since it was his plan; he feels too exposed out here in an open space like this. They’ve spent the last three months making their way from the frozen Southern Water tribe through the wilderness of the Earth Kingdom to get to here, now, these walls and what’s just beyond them. If their map is correct. Adam thinks back to Justin nearly dying and hopes on everything that it was worth the risk to obtain it.

Shitty comes back with an armful of masks and hands them out, saying, “You would not believe what that guy was charging for these. Practically highway robbery.” 

“Here,” Justin says in a low voice, tapping Adam’s shoulder to tell him to turn around. When he does, Justin ties his sun mask to his face. His hands seem to linger longer than they need to. Adam shivers. He ties Justin’s moon mask and lets his fingers sift through the hair on the back of his neck.

Jack’s blue eyes look out from behind an even bluer spirit mask with poking white tusks and shiny white teeth. “Let’s go.”

____________

It’s surprisingly easy to get through the gates. Adam doesn’t like that. 

The streets are noisy, filled with dancers and animals and streamers and music. Adam doesn’t like that either. It feels too much like a place to sink into and never emerge from. He knows it’s practical, he knows they got incredibly lucky; their odds of navigating these streets without being found and captured increases with every festival goer they pass. They couldn’t have picked a better day for this, and yet Adam still feels like they’re being watched. 

He does his best to look like he’s having fun. He tries some of the food samples the restaurants are giving out. He picks Lardo up when the music wants him to and he spins them, both laughing, until Adam can almost believe the feeling of being observed was in his head. 

A woman at a restaurant door smiles to customers but her eyes follow them. When Adam check again, she’s talking to a young family. He looks again. She’s staring directly at them.

“There’s a woman watching us,” he says through a forced smile. “At that restaurant on the corner.”

He reaches for Justin and with a hideous lurch his fingers catch only feels air.

“Justin?”

Lardo’s eyes widen. “We need to go  _ now,” _ she says.

“But—”

She grabs his hand and yanks him into the crowd. He lets her steer them through food booths and knock over a cabbage cart and duck under archways strewn with flowers and banners and down back alleyways until they emerge next to a fountain in a small square two blocks away from the main festival. They’re the only ones in the square. Strains of music float gently on the breeze.

“Lardo, where is everyone?” 

She ignores him, instead frantically pushing on tiles along the sides of the fountain. Panic rises like bile in his throat. He crouches next to her and repeats himself, louder, and her face is nothing but worry when she meets his eyes.

“I don’t know,” she says. The words come out uneven. “I saw that woman you were talking about, and then when I looks back — Shitty promised me we’d always meet back here if something went wrong, he has to be here.”

Lardo pushes on the tiles with more urgency now. “It’s a Lotus passageway,” she says. “If I can just find the right one we can just — we can wait and meet them, they’ll find us. They have to.”

She says her last sentence like it’s more for her than for him and, not for the first time, Adam wonders how close she is to Shitty. It’s only a temporary distraction from the reality of their situation. Adam scrambles to push on the tiles too.

He feels the fire before he sees it. It burns hot through the air toward them, and Adam barely blocks it in time before another takes up his whole field of view. It’s coming from the direction of the main street but the attack is too heavy to see who’s bending. He absorbs the blow and the next and the next.

“Come close to me,” Adam whispers, sweating. Lardo gets behind him.

He sends all his fury and worry and anxiety into the brightest hoop of fire he’s ever made and sends it shooting outward, filling the entire square, and he runs after it. The smoke clears as the hoop expands and he sees, finally, the seven Fire Nation soldiers waiting in the archway. The hoop is too fast for them to block. It knocks them over just before Adam needs to follow with blows. He does anyway.

Water knocks him off his feet and he sends fire in the general direction of the hit, sputtering, and then there are hands trying to force him to his feet. He needs to wipe his eyes — he can’t see — he punches and the air hisses as water douses his flame.

“Adam!” 

Justin’s voice cuts through his panic. Someone brushes his hair off his forehead and when he opens his eyes, someone in a silvery mask is pulling him upright. Adam is vaguely aware of Lardo and Shitty shouting for them to  _ run! We’re right behind you! Go! _

Metal boots pound the streets. The sound fills the square and Adam’s ears and heart and lungs in the same instant and his vision is blurred suddenly when Justin pushes him out of the way of another blast of fire. Adam struggles to push him off.

“Adam, please don’t fight me right now, we have to go!”

Justin’s crying behind his mask. Adam shakes himself together. He takes Justin’s hand and chases the music back to the main street of the festival trying to lose them in the crowd. Everyone’s eyes feels itchy on his skin. Then he realizes.

“Justin,” he says slowly. Justin’s breath hitches. “Where’s Jack?”

Justin doesn’t answer. Maybe it’s because he can’t.

It doesn’t matter anyhow. Adam doesn’t need him to say it to know they have Jack.

____________

“It was a trap,” Adam says hours later. The festival has long since died down, and he’s colder than he’s ever felt at night. Something more than the usual chill of the moon is in his bones tonight. “That’s why it was so easy to get through the gates. Why that woman was staring at us. She must have known we were coming and alerted the guards somehow.”

They duck into an alcove behind a statue of a badgermole. Metal boots plonk on the stones. Adam doesn’t breathe until the sound turns the corner at the end of the street.

“I heard you say that,” Justin says, “but then a crowd of people pushed between us.”

The darkness seems darker as Justin whispers how a group of soldiers were on them immediately, forcing their arms behind their backs and kicking their knees so they’d fall to the ground. They hadn’t known to take Justin’s water from him. They had known Jack was the one in the blue spirit mask. Justin had gotten himself and Shitty away, but the soldiers had tied Jack’s hands.

“He can bend with his feet,” Adam says. It sounds desperate even to him. “I’ve seen him do it, we practiced that so much. Maybe he—”

“I don’t think so.” Justin traces the fur on the statue like it’s hiding a secret. “I don’t know where they took him. I just know they did.”

Adam was wrong when they met Lardo and Shitty in the woods. This is the worst scenario of all of them, isn’t it? Jack in the hands of Fire Nation soldiers who know he’s the banished, fugitive Fire Prince. The strongest beacon of hope for ending the war. Their only real power was in the fact that no one really knew what Jack looked like.

Adam says, “It was that mask merchant,” and Justin bows his head. He doesn’t contradict him.

Eventually they leave the alcove, holding desperately to the idea of finding refuge in a teashop. All of them seem closed for the night. Adam leads them down alleys and behind statues and wonders when this night will ever end. His parents always told him the world was best in sunlight. He’d thought it was just because of firebending, but right now he’d give anything to see things clearly. 

It is the deepest part of the night when Justin stops in front of a flower bed and stoops to examine the petals. Adam asks him if he’s ready to continue a few moments later, saying  _ stop to smell the flowers is only an expression. _ Justin says, “These are white lotus flowers.” It sounds like he said  _ hope. _

Adam reads the teashop’s sign and nearly laughs out loud. 

“Best in Sunlight,” he says. There’s a lotus flower dotting the  _ i. _ “Do you trust me?”

Any other day Justin would say something like  _ It makes me nervous when you ask that because I know you’re about to do something stupid. _ Now he just says, “With everything.”

It burns sweetly under Adam’s collarbones. He thinks he’d call this hope too.

He knocks on the door.

A light turns on.

The door opens to them.

____________

The first thing Adam notices is the teashop is unusually busy for a restaurant whose hours are supposed to be late morning to evening. The second thing he notices is Shitty and Lardo hunched over a table that seems to be the epicenter of all the activity. The third thing he notices is— 

Jack, on the table. Jack, pale. 

Jack, not breathing.

“No,” he whispers. 

Lardo tilts his head back and covers his nose and kisses him and Shitty presses on his chest rhythmically. The door closes behind them with a slight  _ snick. _ Lardo wipes her mouth and looks around at the sound.

“Justin!” she shouts, and his name breaks apart in the air. She wipes her eyes. “Justin, we need you.”

Justin encases his hands in water immediately and rushes over. He’s let through easily, like a stone through water. Adam’s sightline closes as people swarm into the room again. He has to elbow his way through the throng.

Shitty says, “Let him through, we might need him,” and the crowd parts for him.

Adam says a quick thank you and stops short at Justin’s side. He’s shaking.

“We need you to,” Lardo’s saying earnestly. She pauses to close Jack’s nose and breathe into his lungs. Shitty starts compressing his chest again. “Justin. Listen to me. At this point the only thing it can do is help.”

“What do you need to do?” Adam asks. He sees it on Justin’s face before he says it.

“They need me to bloodbend.” Justin takes a deep breath and the water around his hands glows light blue. “I’ll — I’ll try, I don’t — I could hurt him.”

Lardo breathes for Jack again. Adam says, “You won’t. I know you,” and Justin bites down on his bottom lip. 

Looking at Jack right now is an impossibility. Adam has never seen him still like this before, it’s unnatural for him not to be moving at least a little bit, it’s— 

He thinks,  _ Jack is dead. _

He says, “You can do this, you’re a healer. You don’t hurt people.” He says, “I’d trust you with my life and I have and we are still alive.” He is crying when he says, “You can bring him back.”

Shitty pauses his compressions and Lardo breathes and Justin plants his hands on Jack’s chest. The blue glow from the water spreads slowly over Jack’s body.

“I know,” Justin says, eyes bright, and then he says, “How long has it been since—?”

Someone behind them says, “Twenty minutes.”

Justin says, “Adam. I need you to send bits of heat into his heart.”

“I don’t know if I—”

_ “You need to.” _

Adam does. 

There is an easy rhythm to this and Adam hates it, how quickly it becomes routine. That bringing Jack back from the dead should be something they can do without talking. Adam sends unformed fire into Jack’s body and warms his blood, his muscles, his brain. Justin, sweat beading on his forehead, focuses his water over Jack’s heart, lungs, and brain. Now and then the glow seems to seep into his skin. Lardo and Shitty take turns breathing for him. A faint pinkish flush comes back to his cheeks. 

Justin’s still biting his lip.

Adam can’t help wishing they’d found the Avatar before this. He’d learned once that there was electricity in the body that kep things moving, and he’d learned once to create shocks of electrical current. He hadn’t learned to restart a heart.

He looks at the frustration and fear resting between Justin’s eyebrows and knows he’s going to have to learn.

“There’s no heartbeat, is there,” Adam says. Justin shakes his head, and Adam squeezes his eyes shut. “Everyone needs to step back,” he says when he opens them. 

Lardo starts to protest but Shitty touches her arm, communicating without words the way they always do. She lets him lead her a step backward. Adam says, “Justin,” and Justin looks at him like he’s being an idiot. 

“No, I need to bloodbend—”

“I don’t want to shock you when I shock him,” Adam says clearly. “You need to make sure he’s dry and you need to stand clear.”

Justin takes the water away and, when he says Jack’s completely dry, Adam places his hands over Jack’s right pec and lower left ribs. He breathes in. He breathes out. He sends an electrical current through Jack’s heart.

There is a split second where he thinks Jack takes a breath but then he tries to analyze Jack’s electrical activity and finds nothing. He sends another shock and taps around his heart again, trying to keep it warm. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Justin’s hands clench into fists. 

Lardo gives him another breath. Justin must be easing Jack’s blood through his veins, because his face is tight like he’s concentrating on seeing the sun. Another breath. Adam makes them back up and gives another shock.

Under his hands, Adam feels— 

“Wait,” he says, and the room falls silent. 

Under his hands, Adam feels—

“Hi,” Jack croaks.

Under his hands, Adam feels Jack’s heartbeat.

____________

They move Jack to a bed and prop him up with a mountain of pillows. Shitty seems to appoint himself Jack’s protector, because he sends them out for food and water and tea more blankets and never leaves his side. Adam doesn’t cry when he sees Jack picking at some bread and soup or when Shitty asks him a dozen times if he’s warm or when Lardo delicately kisses Jack’s forehead.

“What happened,” she asks softly. 

Adam doesn’t cry when Jack, voice labored, tells them how he was captured and escaped and made his way to the square with the fountain. He doesn’t cry when, coughing, Jack explains how the White Lotus found him pushing on the fountain’s tiles. He refuses to cry when Jack says they were attacked on their way to Best in Sunlight. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t cry when Jack described how the soldiers had pulled and pulled at his body heat until his heat stopped.

Jack says, “It was like I was smothering inside my skin. I didn’t know we could do that,” and when he glances at Adam, Adam knows him well enough to know the expression on his face is shame.

A few of their friends start to reassure him and tell him  _ it’s not your fault _ and  _ you’re safe now _ but Adam interrupts them, understanding what Jack needs but is afraid to ask for.

“None of us knew.” Adam sets down his bowl. “I didn’t know I could put it back, either, but I did. There is more to firebending than destruction. I think, maybe, fire can be life, too.”

He’s trying to say  _ You’re not broken, you are a firebender. You are the wielder, you are not the tool. You are the Fire Prince. You get to decide what that looks like. _ Jack breaks off a piece of bread and soaks it in his soup and when he looks up, Adam sees the  _ thank you _ caught at the corner of his mouth. He nods.

The owner of the teashop pokes his head into the room and, belatedly, Adam realizes there’s no other heat in the building aside from the six of them. At some point everyone else must have gone home. They hadn’t gotten to thank them for getting Jack and Lardo and Shitty back safely.

“I’m going to bed now,” the owner says. His face is wrinkly and kind when he says, “There is still soup on the stove if you want seconds, and there are beds in two other rooms on this floor. You are welcome to stay as long as you need. We won’t be opening today.”

Shitty stands and bows and says, “Thank you for everything you have done today.”

The man waves his hand. “It’s the least I can do,” he says, “for the kids about to save the world.”

“What’s your name?” Jack asks, and then coughs again. “I’d like to remember you fully, if that’s okay.”

The man smiles. “Johnson.” 

They listen to his footsteps fade into the rest of the house. No one says anything for a long time. Adam feels a faint pressure on his side and when he checks it out, he’s met with Justin leaning against his chest. He holds his breath. He holds Justin closer.

Adam thinks Lardo’s tilting her head at them but he ignores her.

Without talking about it, they separate briefly to find the other beds Johnson mentioned and bring them back to Jack’s room. Jack’s eyes are shut when they come back in. Adam’s heart stumbles to a stop before seeing the steady rise and fall of his chest. He asks himself how long it’s going to be until he starts believing Jack is still alive, still breathing, still here with them. Jack’s scar is a purple-pink in the light. Adam knows it will be at least a while longer.

“You left his scar,” Adam whispers later. 

Justin turns, dragging the blankets. “It wasn’t my decision to make,” he whispers back. His eyes dip from Adam’s nose to his chin to his mouth. There’s a moment where the future is so close Adam thinks he could touch it if he wanted to. Here on the floor, their friends around them, Adam thinks he can almost see what Justin saw on top of that mountain days ago. 

A memory blooms in his mind. “You pushed me out of the way back at the square. When that soldier found us.”

“Yes,” Justin breathes.

Adam carefully pushes the blankets down to Justin’s hips. Justin moves his shirt himself. The burn is dark and angry against his skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Justin shrugged. “It wasn’t the most important thing that was happening.”

“It was still important,” Adam says, and someone grumbles in their sleep. He lowers his voice. “Who’s going to be careful for the both of us if you’re on fire?”

“You were in danger, you would have done it for me.”

A current of panic pulses through Adam’s body. That’s not the point, that’s never been the point — of course he would’ve done it for Justin, of course Justin did it for him, but— 

“I just don’t understand,” he whispers, “why you’d take such a risk for me.”

“Adam.” Justin smiles slightly. “Yeah. You do.”

Justin’s gaze on him is a physical thing. Adam traces Justin’s jaw, smoothes his thumb over his cheek. When Adam kisses him, Justin closes his eyes. 

____________

In the morning, Lardo observes the way Adam helps Justin stand up and says, “How long have you been waiting for them to finally kiss, Jack?”

Jack’s laugh turns into a cough. “At least two years.” 

They take turns teasing them for how red Adam gets when he sees Justin or when Justin smiles at him or when Justin breathes. Adam might mind normally, but it’s a welcome distraction from what just happened the night before. For all of them. There’s a reason they eat on the floor of their room instead of at the table. 

Around noon Johnson reminds them again that they don’t have to leave right away, but Jack insists. 

“Nothing like dying to put your priorities in order,” he says. Adam chokes on a laugh. Everyone else shifts their feet awkwardly. From the way the corner of Jack’s mouth twitches, Adam’s pretty sure he did that on purpose. 

Johnson says, “Good luck.” He seems to study Jack intently. “I’m glad we got this version of you instead of the boy trying to hunt and capture the Avatar. You’ll do well.”

Jack blinks. “Thanks?”

“You are quite welcome.” Johnson claps his hands together. “You are all packed? You have the money in your bag? You know where to meet your contact? And you are quite sure you don’t want more tea for the road?”

“We’re sure,” Lardo says. Adam wrinkles his nose at her and she makes a face back. She currently has a stash of tea that’s a third of her height in her pack. 

They all thank him once last time and he tucks ten sachets of jasmine tea into Jack’s pack and then he closes the door behind them. Adam takes Justin’s hand. 

No one is smiling. The streets are different now, irreparably colored with the events of last night. Adam passes the spot where Jack died and shivers. They don’t talk about it, but it manages to hang heavy in the air regardless. 

Adam counts the number of soldiers they pass and the lack of additional guards makes him uneasy. He’d thought there’d be more patrols and a curfew in place, or something, now that they knew for sure the Fire Prince and his friends were inside the walls. There is a very good chance he won’t properly relax until they finish this stage of their mission. 

Their contact meets them in a tiny steamboat at a small stream flowing out of the wall. She reminds them to keep their heads down as she covers them in feed bags, and Adam counts the seconds until someone throws him overboard. It never comes. The light filtering in through the bags grows darker and darker until, suddenly, his world explodes into blue.

“You’re out,” the woman says in a low voice. Adam blinks up at the open sky. Around him, he hears his friends do the same. “Johnson said you had something for me.”

Jack takes out ten gold pieces. She takes them, squinting at Jack like he’s too bright to see head on. She grins suddenly.

She says, “Good luck,” and jumps overboard.

Adam rushes to the railing in time to see her swim to shore, wave, and disappear into the forest.

“Wow,” he says. “She undercharged us.” 

Shitty makes a face like he approves of the woman’s antics. “Any of you know how to steer a boat?”

They all look at Justin.

“What?”

____________

“This is discrimination,” Justin says hours later. 

Adam’s lying on his back with his shirt off, testing Jack’s theory that he’ll eventually develop enough freckles to be a walking freckle. He hums. A water spout douses him from head to toe and he yelps.

Adam says, “That was uncalled for,” and shakes out his hair over Justin’s stomach. Justin bends the water down Adam’s chest. They spend several futile minutes trying to make the other give in before Adam remembers he could just evaporate the water.

“Cheater.” 

He throws another handful of water and Adam laughs. Justin kisses him, and Adam thinks the smallest amount of steam trails from their lips when they separate. 

____________

It’s a short journey to the open sea. It’s even shorter to the iceberg minefield they’ve been looking for for the last five months. Adam can’t help but stare at them as they pass, giant mountains of ice that crack and slough as if something alive was threatening to come out. 

It loses its novelty after three days. The cold almost burrows into his bones, freezing his fire. He hates it. He’s wearing every layer he has and practicing his fire breaths and still feels the chill.

“Do you want to spar?” he asks at breakfast on the fourth day. 

Jack says, “Cold?”

“Like frostbite.” 

Jack laughs at that and it’s close enough to his pre-death laugh that Adam warms a bit. “Sure,” Jack says. “If you’re ready for me to kick your ass again.”

“Oh, please.” Adam clears his dishes.

“Good thing we’re doing this,” Jack says seriously. His mouth twitches. “Your chirping needs some work.”

Adam rolls his eyes as they emerge onto the main deck. They start with easy sequences, ones they learned years ago when they were eleven and the world was just beginning to fracture in front of them. Today they practice like they’re putting it together again.

Jack presses him and he presses back and he thinks, maybe, fire is a beautiful element. It’s more like a dance than a true fight. Ebb and flow. He thinks maybe they both learned something from Justin over the years. Slowly, Adam amps up the heat, checking now and then that the moves aren’t too strenuous for Jack. Jack’s sweating more than usual but he seems glad for the exercise. Adam, warming up from the inside, knows how he feels.

“Give me your best shot,” he calls across the deck. “Everything you’ve got.”

Jack prods his scar. “You sure? Last time—”

“Yeah, but I’m fine now,” Adam says. He shakes his sleeves away from his wrists. “See? Good as new.”

Jack’s eyes gleam and Adam knows he has him. “Okay.”

Adam watches Jack breathe in slowly, absorbing the energy from the sun, and send it spiraling at him like a roaring waterfall. The force of it forces Adam backwards, but he catches it easily and sends it rushing back. Jack’s good eye widens.

“No—”

Adam shoves the wall of fire into the closest iceberg and it shatters, raining icicles and blocks of debris over their heads. He raises a ceiling of fire over their heads. Water comes down as steam.

He hears the door to the deck slam open. “What happened?” Lardo yells. 

“I sent too much!”

Adam holds the fire until his arms start shaking but Justin has already begun plucking chunks of ice out of the sky. He starts blasting blocks as they fall. The corners of his vision go a little hazy; he’s doing too much after not doing any intense practice for ages, he needs— 

A searing line of fire blasts once and everything stills.

Adam sinks to the floor. 

“Adam!”

Justin’s hands flit over his face, his pulse. Whatever he finds must satisfy him because the line between his forehead eases. Adam tries to focus on that instead of the fact that Jack is now curled up on his side. Lardo kneels next to him, except when she turns it’s Jack kneeling next to another, smaller body— 

His legs are unsteady as he runs across the yards between them. He hadn’t thought it was this big a ship before now. Justin appears next to him and pulls Adam’s arm over his shoulder and Adam steadies. Justin has always been steady like that.

Jack’s staring down at the person when they arrive. At first Adam thinks it’s Lardo and is about to start doing what they did for Jack before he sees the arrow tattoos poking out from the person’s sleeves. Before he sees the arrow sloping over the person’s forehead. Before he realizes—

He covers his mouth. Next to him Justin whispers something that sounds like a prayer.

Hope floats down like snow.

“It’s you,” Jack breathes, and the Avatar wakes up.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING THIS I WAS POSSESSED AND WROTE IT IN LIKE 14 HOURS  
> That was a cliffhanger!! but yes that is Bitty in the iceberg  
> I was trying to decide if I wanted to push it further but this story felt more like Adam's, Justin's, and Jack's, and it felt finished here :)  
> also yeah the title is from an Iroh quote :') the full thing is _"In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength."_
> 
> pls lemme know what you think in the comments (i am ALWAYS ready to yell about this AU) or [come find me on tumblr :)](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/)


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